The CS was a late addition to the list. It wasn’t my intention to go from Coventry to Sawston, the venue for the Folk Dance and Song Group Easter Gather, via Herefordshire, but if you drive museum pieces instead of sensible cars, sometimes you have to go quite a long way to get a new clutch.

Visitors to the Club website who are on Twitter may have heard of the sudden death of my
travelling companion, Molly.

Three weekends ago we enjoyed a pre Easter visit to Lytham and St Anne’s, near Blackpool,
where she ran about, pestered a swan and used the newfound energy that tablets for hypothyroidism had given her to roll around in the grassy dunes.

Now she’s gone, after being diagnosed with diabetes and struggling to make progress with her
illness.

I am sad, as the chauffeur dissolves into tears occasionally as he realises his sofa
companion is no longer lying at his feet.

But life goes on, and I have been invited to take on the enjoyable task of sniffing out grrrreat sites for canine chums to visit this summer.

So watch this space, as they say, and I will do my best to make our much missed Molly proud of my efforts.

Last autumn/winter we travelled 10,000 miles in our Swift Escape 696 motorhome around Britain and Spain, staying on dozens of Camping and Caravanning Club campsites. We were on an adventure to visit as many as possible of our friends and family on Facebook, donating to charity for each one we saw. We hoped to inspire others to do similar.

We saw about 150 friends, something that was reported around the world in international media, including live TV interviews on national breakfast shows in the UK and Australia. It was phenomenal.